Saturday, 19 October 2013

Statue
of Diana as "The Spirit of Progress" atop a former Montgomery Ward
administration building in Chicago, silhouetted against the second
night of a Harvest Moon: photo by Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune, 30 September 2012 (Trib Photo Nation)

.........from Cynthias Revells

Queene, and Huntresse, chaste, and faire,
..Now the Sunne is laid to sleepe,
Seated, in thy silver chaire,
..State in wonted manner keepe:
Hesperus intreats thy light,
Goddesse, excellently bright.Earth, let not thy envious shade
..Dare it selfe to interpose;
Cynthias shining orbe was made
..Heaven to cleere, when day did close:
Blesse us then with wishèd sight,
Goddesse, excellently bright.Lay thy bow of pearle apart,
..And thy crystall-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
..Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddesse, excellently bright.

New
bay Bridge Eastern Span with full moon and Coit Tower, taken from Hyde
Street at top of the crooked block of Lombard Street. Russian Hill, San
Francisco: photo by Tony Wasserman (Blue Voter), 19 September 2013

Harvest Moon: photo by Roadcrusher, 26 September 2007

Full moon rising, seen through the Belt of Venus (the pink band above the dark blue band of the earth's shadow on the horizon): photo by fir0002/flagstaffoto, 28 August 2007

8 comments:

In a contemporary performance tenor Ian Bostridge proves equal to the formidable task of chasing the moon through Benjamin Britten's breathless, brilliant modern (1943) setting of this virtuosic Jonson lyric (part of a wartime cycle of British poetic night-pieces).

I lived on the Isle of dogs for a few years Tom. The area of London where the Cray twins had their home. The Gun pub still existed while I was there. It was at the time of my residence an area where the police didn’t go at night so the pubs were open all night. I stayed on a boat in Poplar dock for a while whose owner built horseboxes for the local gangsters. He was an ex-mercenary soldier had tested parachutes was a sailor a climber a pot-holer and a hothead who got in a bad argument with his employers .... i would come home from college and expect that I’d have a visit from them one evening and end up with no knee caps ........

The astonishing delicacy and tonal control of this small lyric, and a handful of others like it, have caused some to suggest that Ben should have writ naught else.

Still... some "don't get it".

Forty years ago, before poetry had become obsolete, a critic named Joseph Summers proposed that this song of Jonson's might constitute a useful litmus test. Summers put his point as follows: If someone does not recognize that the line "Goddess excellently bright" is a fine one, they might consider taking up something other than English poetry.

By the by, there exists a transcription of an amusing meta-academic colloquy between Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, conducted at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa, in which AG attempts valiantly to teach the Jonson lyric. A bit of the transcript:

AG: Wake up. "...let not thy envious shade/ Dare itself to interpose/ Cynthias shining..." Well, so, he doesn't want the Earth to get in the way there. "Cynthia's shining orbe was made/ Heaven to cleere, when day did close:/ Blesse us then with wished sight,/ Goddesse excellently bright." -- So all it's saying is, "Moon, c'mon and shine!" (but a hymn to the moon to shine -- "Lay thy bow of pearle apart,/ And thy cristall-shining quiver" -- Diana was also a huntress -- "Give unto thy flying hart" -- H-A-R-T, the hart is a deer...)

GC: It's a rabbit.

AG: Rabbit or deer

GC: Rabbit

Students: Deer

GC: You wanna bet? How much do you wanna bet?

AG: Wanna take a vote? Let's take a vote. Who wants it to be a rabbit?

[show of hands]

Who wants it to be a deer?

[show of hands]

You're outvoted three-to-one!

GC: How much money am I going to make tonight? Assholes! -- A hart is a rabbit.

AG: We'll find that out, too -- "Give unto the flying hart,/ Space to breathe, how short soever:/ Thou that mak'st a day of night/ Goddesse, excellently bright" -- Somebody must have set that to music and made a really solid anthem-like hymn of that, because it's such a perfect set-up, that "Queene and Huntress, chaste, and faire,/ Now the Sunne is laid to sleepe", it's such perfect time and stately time.

I've heard people say that the body knows what to consume for nutrition when it's ill. I'm not certain that's true, but perhaps a parallel is knowing what to click on when you're mentally fatigued and sorely in need of reviving. This was all wonderful -- the Johnson lyric, all the music and performances (it was great hearing the Mike Oldfield piece; he's really a sui generis figure and constantly surprising), the comments and the images. Walking the dogs at night this week, we've been thinking about the big moon, not speaking much, feeling pressured. This really lifts me up, including Joseph Summers' remark, which is right on. It's politically incorrect, I believe, to be in favor of litmus tests, but I think they can be useful, depending on the consequences.